First Memory

"Already she remembers scenes, so many- her mother walking in through the front door with her wrapped-up baby brother; that time the big dog gobbled up her toast before she could take a single bite; that day a bad man pushed her so hard on the swing she spun out, landing face down in the dust. Also, sometimes, some first happy thing she barely senses anymore- a soapy bath toy, warm in her baby hands?"

"All of that has made her who she is right now, a girl with pictures in her head from a place he called the South, her grandfather whose house she plays outside where there's a falling whiteness that her mouth takes in as ice cream: of all her memories, this is the first one she will claim even into old age. How could she know that everything that's happened until now would melt away in time, except the snow?"

She can hold up four fingers and understands she will be four next month. She already remembers many scenes: her mother entering with a wrapped baby brother, the big dog gobbling her toast before she could bite, and a man pushing her so hard on a swing that she landed face-down in the dust. Occasionally a faint early pleasure surfaces, like a warm soapy bath toy in her baby hands. Those moments have shaped her into a girl with images of the South and her grandfather’s house. A falling whiteness there—taken into her mouth as if it were ice cream—becomes the memory she will carry longest; other memories will gradually melt away over time.

Read at The Atlantic